Chapter Twenty Three. His Ugliness at Pembridge Gardens.

An hour later the Doctor called upon Frank Farquhar in Half Moon Street, and excitedly showed him the precious copy of the document which “Red Mullet” had secured for him.

Frank was highly interested, of course, but refused to accompany the hunchback to Pembridge Gardens. As his reason, he gave that he had a directors’ meeting down in Fleet Street which he was bound to attend. Sir George was absent and he was therefore compelled to be in his place. The truth was that he had no desire to meet Gwen.

The girl had written him several pitiful and reproachful letters during the past fortnight, but to these he had made no response, except by one brief note in which he had repeated his very pointed question.

“No, Doctor,” he said, “go yourself to Pembridge Gardens. The Professor will, I’m sure, be delighted to meet you, and you can discuss the matter thoroughly with him. I’ll see him this evening.”

Therefore Diamond had taken a cab out to Notting Hill Gate, and on inquiring for Griffin and giving his name, was shown at once upstairs to the study.

The Professor, with his usual courtesy, expressed his pleasure at the meeting, though if the truth were told he had not expected to see a man of the little Doctor’s extreme ugliness. Then, when his visitor produced the precious copy of the dead man’s manuscript, the great scholar sat down and breathlessly read it through from end to end.

“This is exactly what I surmised from the burnt fragments,” he remarked, taking off his glasses as he turned to where the Doctor was sitting. “But the great and fascinating problem we have to solve is the whereabouts of the two keys to the cipher. One thing seems clear from the document, namely, that the dead man was Holmboe, the discoverer of the hidden secret.”

“Exactly. He knew the uncertainty of his life. Indeed he told me so when he had his first attack,” replied the little man, “the initials ‘P.H.’ were also upon his clothing.”

“He told you he was a Dane. But in all probability he was a Russian or a Finn,” remarked Griffin slowly turning over the leaves of a reference book before him. “Yes—here he is—Peter Holmboe, Professor of Hebrew at St. Petersburg, University, appointed four years ago. He apparently occupied a very high post for so young a man. He made the declaration in Hamburg, I see, therefore he had, no doubt, resigned his professorship in order to devote his time to finding capital to exploit the remarkable secret he had discovered.”

“Yes. But what’s the use of the secret without the key to the cipher?” queried the Doctor.

“None whatever. We must work to discover the key,” Griffin replied. “If I close study, discover the key myself.”

“Farquhar’s journey to Copenhagen was utterly fruitless. We were led there upon a wild goose chase,” the Doctor said. “The unfortunate fact is that others are also in search of the secret.”

“I am aware of that. But how did you discover it?”

“I was told by my friend—the man who secured for me this copy—an old friend named Mullet. He knows more than he will tell me!”

While the Doctor was speaking, Gwen had opened the door and entered the room.

She heard the visitor utter the name of her protector, and became instantly interested.

“This is Doctor Diamond, dear,” explained her father. “You have heard Mr Farquhar speak of him.”

The little Doctor jumped to his feet and bowed, while the girl, in dark skirt and clean white blouse, graciously acknowledged his greeting.

She was anxious to learn what connection this dwarfed man could have with her mysterious protector.

“I heard you speak of a Mr Mullet, Doctor,” she remarked. “Is that a man known as ‘Red Mullet’?”

“Yes, Miss Griffin. He is a friend of mine.”

“Or rather you are a great friend of his, I have heard—eh?”

“Then you know him!” exclaimed the Doctor, much surprised. “You met him abroad, I suppose?” The girl did not reply. She was puzzled at the curious connection between the red-haired man who had been her janitor and the ugly little Doctor who was Frank’s friend.

“I know him,” she said at last. “And being a friend of yours, he is a friend of ours.”

“That’s so,” declared the Doctor, laughing. “Some people say ill things of him, but I have known him for some years, and he has always acted straight and honourably towards me.”

“Well,” exclaimed the Professor with some impatience. “Leave us, child. We want to get on with the examination of this paper which Doctor Diamond has just brought me.”

“Does it concern the Treasure of Israel, dad?” inquired the girl, walking up to his table.

“Yes, dear. It is a copy of the complete document, so you may imagine how deeply I’m interested in it.”

“Has Frank seen it?” she asked quickly, to which the Doctor replied in the affirmative.

Then when the girl had, with some reluctance, left them together, they resumed their discussion.

“We can discover nothing tangible without a knowledge of the cipher,” remarked Griffin very gravely. “And in my belief, though it is here stated that the key is concealed in two separate cities, at the time of Holmboe’s death he had it in his possession. That was a portion of it which you rescued—the one folio in manuscript. The typewritten document was evidently prepared to place before a financier with a view to the equipment of an expedition to Palestine. But the additional manuscript was evidently a record of the cipher, together with its key. Have you a copy of it?”

“Yes,” replied the Doctor, taking from his breast-pocket some papers from among which he took a copy he had made in his own handwriting. “As far as I could judge, the manuscript of which this is one folio, consisted of about seven folios. I recollect quite well noticing, as I placed it in the stove, that certain characters in Hebrew were written upon it.”

“Well,” exclaimed Griffin, spreading the copy of the half-destroyed leaf before him, “that the cipher is a numerical one is quite apparent. It seems that it is based upon the wâw sign, or sixth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Six is the sign of evil. Nevertheless I have turned up the reference to Ezekiel, xli, 23, but cannot find anything unusual in the Hebrew text.”

“Because we do not possess the key,” remarked the hunchback with a sigh.

“Admitted. But we have the basis of the calculation—the regular occurrence of the letter ‘w’ or ‘v’ in the text. For days, nay, weeks, I have been trying to solve that problem, using each of the known cabalistic ciphers of the ancients, but without the slightest success.”

“It is an unknown cipher, without a doubt—even though you recognise the basis.”

“Numerical ciphers are always most difficult,” Griffin declared. “Yet was it not Edgar Allen Poe who declared that human ingenuity could not invent a cipher which human ingenuity could not solve. I have tried my calculations upon the earliest known text, that preserved in St. Petersburg—but in vain.”

“What do you think of the dead man’s statement that the key is divided into two parts—one portion being concealed in each city?”

“I don’t accept that as genuine,” declared the Professor. “I regard it as a mere embellishment of facts, in order to prevent any one from trying to unriddle the message. The unfortunate man ordered you to destroy the directions for reading the message, together with the statement itself.”

“I rather wish I had disobeyed,” remarked the Doctor with a grin. “The fact that it was in manuscript and not in typing shows that he would not trust any one with sight of it.”

“Which goes far to prove the truth of my argument. There is a key number, depend upon it. When once you have that, and we ascertain at what point to start, then the secret record will soon be revealed.”

“But how can we obtain it—that’s the question,” the Doctor said. “I would like to know how far the inquiries of our enemies have advanced. This copy was obtained from the complete copy in their possession.”

“Who are our enemies? Do you know them?” asked the Professor, starting forward quickly.

“No. My friend, though he had supplied me with this, refuses all information concerning them, except to say that they are both powerful and wealthy.”

“What do they know concerning the key?”

“Not so much as ourselves. They do not possess even the few words concerning it that we do.”

“But will not your friend divulge the identity of our enemies?” asked Griffin, “not if we take him into partnership with us, and allow him to share in the huge profits which must accrue if anything is actually recovered?”

“I thought that your opinion upon the whole story was a negative one,” remarked the Doctor with a strangely wily look.

The Professor, bent upon writing a learned article in the Contemporary, giving a story that should startle the world, held his breath for a moment. But only for a single instant.

“Well,” he answered without hesitation, “at first I was, it is true, inclined to regard it as an amazing piece of fiction, but after certain researches and study I have now come to the conclusion that there may be more truth in it than would at first appear. I, of course, regard it from a scholar’s point of view, and not from that of a financier.”

“I believe in money,” declared the ugly little man frankly. “It should be put forward, when ripe, as a sound financial proposition—just as, no doubt, its discoverer, Peter Holmboe, intended to put it forward.”

“Then if so, why will not your friend Mullet join forces with us? It would surely be to his advantage!”

“Because he’s tied to the other side.”

“If it has not prevented him from supplying us in secret with this copy of the document, it surely would not prevent him assisting us further, and placing us upon our guard regarding the actions of our enemies. Have you no idea, Doctor, how these other people obtained a copy of Holmboe’s statement? It surely could not have been kicking about the streets, having in view the fact that he was so careful to destroy it before his death.”

“I haven’t any idea how they obtained it, or even their names. My friend will tell me nothing.”

“Who is this man Mullet? Have you any objection to telling me?”

“The man whom your daughter was discussing—the man known to his friends as ‘Red Mullet’—is a cosmopolitan who lives mostly on the Continent, and, between ourselves, has the reputation of being an adventurer.”

“And a friend of my daughter!” the elder man exclaimed in surprise. “She seems to meet very undesirable people sometimes. The latitude allowed to girls nowadays, Doctor, is very different from that of thirty years ago—eh?”

“What can we expect in this age of the ‘New Woman’ and the Suffragette?” laughed the other, holding up his hands.

“But could we not induce this Mr Mullet to help us—or at least to reveal to us in what direction our enemies are working? They have with them a very clever and ingenious scholar, of that I have already satisfied myself.”

“Ah!” sighed Diamond. “If we only could get ‘Red Mullet’ with us. But I fear that there are certain circumstances which entirely preclude such an arrangement. At least, that is what I suspect.”

“I wonder what my daughter can know of the man?” remarked Griffin, ignorant of the fact that Gwen’s curiosity had got the better of her, or that the door being ajar she had heard the Doctor’s statement.

“It certainly does seem a rather curious fact that they are acquainted,” remarked the Doctor. “But, Professor,” he went on eagerly, “I suppose you now have no doubt that there is more in the remarkable story than mere surmise.”

Griffin was again silent for a few moments.

“Providing that the sacred relics remain still hidden—and there certainly seems nothing against that belief, even though some have declared that Solomon’s golden vessels were afterwards used in Persia—then we have, of course, precise knowledge of certain of them,” he said with great deliberation. Opening the Hebrew-English Bible at 2 Chronicles, iv, 19, he said: “Listen to this as an example,” and he read as follows:

”‘And Solomon made all the vessels that were for the house of God, the golden altar also, and the tables whereon the shew-bread was set;

”‘Moreover the candlesticks with their lamps, that they should burn after the manner before the oracle, of pure gold;

”‘And the flowers, and the lamps, and the tongs, made he of gold, and that perfect gold;

”‘And the snuffers, and the basons, and the spoons, and the censers, of pure gold; and the entry of the house, the inner doors thereof for the most holy place, and the doors of the house of the temple, were of gold.’

“Concerning the Ark of the Covenant, which the cipher says still lies hidden, we have in the next chapter, commencing at verse 7:

”‘And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place, to the oracle of the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim:

”‘For the cherubim spread forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and the staves thereof above.

”‘And they drew out the staves of the ark that the end of the staves were seen from the ark before the oracle, but they were not seen without. And there it is unto this day.

”‘There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put therein at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt.’

“The gold, of course, came from the ancient Ophir,” remarked the Doctor, “and curiously enough the site of this El Dorado has only recently been established by Dr Carl Peters as having been at Zimbabwe, and the surrounding region in south-eastern Mashonaland.”

“Yes,” remarked the Professor. “There is, I think, no question that Solomon obtained his gold from that district. The old workings are said by Hall and Neal to number seventy-five thousand, and hundreds of thousands of tons of gold ore must have been dug out during the Himyaritic era. The Kaffirs still call the place ‘Fur.’ and the Arabs ‘Afur.’ It was from there that Solomon’s ships brought the four hundred and twenty talents of gold mentioned in 1 Kings, ix, 26-28, and in 2 Chronicles, viii, 17-18. Again, we are told that in one year Solomon obtained six hundred and sixty-six talents of gold—each talent being worth eleven thousand pounds of our money—from the same region, most of which was used in the manufacture of the vessels for the temple.”

“Some of which we hope to recover, Professor,” laughed the ugly little man.

“We certainly might,” sighed the other, “if only we could discover the solution of this most fascinating yet tantalising problem.”